


You Will Be Found

by fangirlandtheories



Category: The Librarians (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, Ezekiel is struggling, Gen, Post-Episode: s02e08 And the Point of Salvation, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, i'm a little cruel, my poor son, post time loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-26
Updated: 2018-01-26
Packaged: 2019-03-09 18:50:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13487577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fangirlandtheories/pseuds/fangirlandtheories
Summary: Another of the usual PTSD Ezekiel fics to read on a rainy day.





	You Will Be Found

**Author's Note:**

  * For [laylabinx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laylabinx/gifts).



> Welllllllllll it's been a little while folks but I'm back for right now. Enjoy!

_ What the hell Jones?! _

_ What happened back there? _

_ What’s wrong with you? _

The questions swam lazily around his head as he pressed himself further into his little hiding place. He had quite a few around the library, but not many to the same caliber as this one. There was a secret room, hidden within a paper thin crease in the wall, that held a small bookshelf, a loveseat, and a single flickering lantern. He maneuvered the loveseat to hide his body into the farthest, darkest corner he could muster. He knew that Jake, Cassandra, and even Eve had no chance finding him, but he was positive that Jenkins knew of the spot. Even more so when a note was slid into the crack in the wall. 

_ They left. You can come out now. No talking necessary. ~J. _

He waited almost half an hour before emerging. Jenkins and the others were nowhere to be found, so he made a dash for the door, setting it to a block away from his house. They could go to the door’s last location, but they wouldn’t know where he lived. He thought back on the questions as he neared his door. What had happened? What was wrong with him? What the hell indeed. He tried not to think about it too hard but couldn’t get the picture of the woman, begging him not to shoot, out of his head. She was innocent. He was lucky. Lucky his guardian was there to stop him. Truth be told he had no idea what happened. One minute they were investigating in Ireland, the next he was back in the DARPA headquarters. He heard the familiar growl from behind him and grabbed Eve’s gun on first instinct, turning it on the rage person behind him. In reality the woman had cleared her throat. He remembers the sound of yelling from Jake, Cassandra quietly telling him to calm down, Eve prying the gun out of his hands, but the thing that stuck out most was the look on the woman’s 6 year old daughter. In that little girl’s eyes he was the monster that he desperately tried to fight. 

He rubbed his eyes with his fingers, feeling a headache coming on, as he sat on his sofa. What a shit day. He flicked on his tv, watching the security channel for his apartment complex first for a little while. Normally it set him at ease a little more. Tonight? Not so much. He switched the channel and the first movie that popped up was I Am Legend. A relatively sad movie, but his night was already ruined, so what the hell. When the credits rolled he went through his nightly routine: shower, brush teeth, sleep as long as he can.

What people don’t tell you about trauma is that you have nightmares… all the time. Not just the kind where he sees the team die time and time again, or the ones where he can feel the teeth and nails of the rage people ripping him to shreds, but the stupid nightmares. The kind that he had before his world went to hell. The kind where he was trapped in a glass cell with no hopes of escape. The kind where he was alone, hopelessly alone, after the team threw him out because who needs a thief on a team of geniuses? Sleeping as long as he could turned into sleeping for about 3 hours then going to the Annex to work on research. 

4 cups of coffee later, Cassandra joined him.

“Ezekiel… we don’t have to talk about it right now, but I know the others agree that we have to discuss what happened yesterday at some point.” She patted at his hand with sympathy. His eyes remained glued to the page. “...Ezekiel…” 

“Okay! You said not right now so let’s just move on from yesterday and focus on today. Y’know you can’t live in the past and all. Ever watch the Incredibles? I never look back, it distracts from the here and now.” He rambled as Cassandra furrowed her brow. He never rambled. She stared at him another moment, feeling him squirm under her scrutiny, before she turned her attention to a project that she had been previously working on. If he wanted to pretend like nothing happened, then she could pretend like she didn’t see the bags under his dull eyes. She had a plan, she just needed to talk it through with the others to make sure it wasn’t crazy and didn’t cross too many lines.

***

Cassandra had, in fact, crossed the line. Not intentionally, of course, as she had discussed with the others. They said it wasn’t the best idea but they never said not to do it. In fact they said ‘Only if it’s deemed necessary.’ Well she deemed it necessary. So maybe drugging your friends is frowned upon, but so is hiding major things from them. Ezekiel did not see it that way.

“What the hell?” He looked around the room blearily. He was on the couch of the reading room and the alarm on his phone was going off. He took a minute to try to gather his thoughts, not an easy task when everything is a little fuzzy around the edges. The alarm continued to blare behind him.

“Shut up!” He slammed the off button. Shaking his head to clear the dizziness brought on by his sudden movement. His limbs felt heavy and uncoordinated. He looked at the time. 5 PM?! Where had the time gone? The last thing he remembered was Cassandra bringing him some much needed tea to go with his breakfast toast, but that was at 8 AM. Everything after that was just… gone. 

“Oh good! I hoped setting the alarm would actually wake you!” Cassandra suddenly opened the door, causing Ezekiel’s heart to momentarily stop as he jumped in surprise. 

“You set the alarm?” He asked, after the fear subsided. His heart was still pounding though. Then an icy thought ran through his brain. “You did this! You… you drugged me, didn’t you?”

“Okay drugged is a harsh word. I aided. You looked exhausted Ezekiel. I was just trying to help you. So yes, I used a sleeping potion.” She confessed. His eyes widened as she admitted the truth.

“Are you kidding me? You were trying to help me? No. You were trying to fix me. Maybe I’m not the way I used to be because I finally matured like you all told me to.” He gave a humorless laugh, feeling the exhaustion setting deep in his bones. “Apparently I can’t do anything right because now you’re saying that I’m acting too mature. There’s no way to win!” Suddenly he was back there.

_ There’s no way to win. _

Cassandra watched in fear as Ezekiel’s body froze, eyes glazing in unseen horror. His breathing quickened as he sat there. Cassandra wondered for just a moment if this is what she looked like to other people who couldn’t see what her brain was showing her. She didn’t like it one bit. Ezekiel was full on hyperventilating at this point, eyes filling with unshed tears, croaking out a single word. No. She had panic attacks before so she knew that this was one but she wasn’t the best at bringing people down. 

“Baird!” She called. “Stone! I need your help in here!” When they entered the room they saw the same sight as Cassandra. A broken man.

“Ezekiel?” Eve reached out slowly, lightly brushing his shoulder as she kneeled down next to him, causing his eyes to open wildly. “Hey it’s okay it’s okay.”

“Can you breathe with us Jones?” Jake asked as he and Cassandra demonstrated breathing. It seemed to be working as his breathing eventually slowed to match theirs. Eve sat beside him and laid a hand on his back, rubbing back and forth for comfort.

“What happened?” She asked quietly. “Is this about yesterday?”

“I can’t do this anymore.” He said looking up at her suddenly. “Do you know how hard it is pretending to be okay? I thought, maybe if I keep up the act, then it’ll become a reality. No dice. I was okay too. That’s the worst part. I never lied about not remembering the loop. Then came the perfect ideal lives and the spell to make us remember who we were. It opened the floodgate and I can’t keep trying to push it back.”

“You’ve been hiding this for that long Ezekiel?” Eve asked before pulling him into a side hug. “I’m not going to ask why you never mentioned it because it’s not my business. Thank you for trusting us with this now. We’re going to do what it takes to help you, okay?”

“Okay.” He whispered, finally meeting her eyes. He could feel the warmth from her words settling into his soul and knew that they were undeniably true. They were going to try to help him heal.

The healing process brought on many questions along the way, some that challenged him to go against his natural instinct to run. In the end it was those questions that made him want to stay even more.

_ You know it wasn’t your fault, right? _

_ Do you trust us? _

_ Are you okay? _

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell at me or request things from me at fangirlandtheories.tumblr.com  
> Please comment or Kudos if you enjoyed!  
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
